LoyolaLawSchool professor Michael J.
Shultz has been elected by the judges of the Los Angeles Superior Court as a
commissioner, officials said yesterday.

He will
fill the vacancy created by the March retirement of Commissioner H.M. “Trip”
Webster III.

Shultz, 44,
is associate clinical director of the Center for Juvenile Law and Policy and
clinical professor of law at Loyola. He told the MetNews he plans to take his
oath of office Dec. 14.

As for his
students, he said, his class “will be in good hands” with faculty members Cyn
Yamashiro, Jojo Liu and Samantha Buckingham taking over.

“I love
teaching and I love kind of being able to educate others about the art of
practicing law,” Shultz declared. “I’m really proud of the accomplishments that
we collectively at the faculty have made at Loyola, and I’m thankful and
honored…to have been allowed to participate in the work here.”

However, he
admitted, “I feel like the courtroom is really kind of where I feel most at
home” and that he “truly missed it…so now I’m coming back…I’m coming home.”

He added
that his goal is “to learn how to be a good judicial officer,” naming Judges
Stephanie Sautner, James Brandlin and Irma Brown as his role models.

A native of
Los Angeles, Shultz attended UC
Santa Barbara and graduated from LoyolaLawSchool in 1991. He was admitted to the State Bar that
same year.

Shultz then
spent 13 years with the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office, where he
tried over 75 cases to a jury verdict.

Between
1998 and 2000, Shultz served as the assistant training coordinator for the
Public Defender’s Office. In that capacity, he was responsible for
training and supervising all newly hired public defenders.

Beginning
in 2001, Shultz worked as a deputy public defender IV, responsible for
representing clients charged with capital murder.

Shultz
joined the Loyola faculty in July 2005.

Under local
rules, vacant commissioner positions are filled by a vote of the judges from a
list of candidates nominated by a court panel. Although the ranking order is
not binding, all commissioners chosen in recent years have been selected in
ranked order.

Following
the election of Shultz, 13 candidates remain on that list in the following
order: